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Johannesburg - Former ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa has received a surprise endorsement from outspoken Cape Town ANC activist and “poo thrower” Andile Lili as the “credible” leader ready to lead Luthuli House.

The founder of Ses’khona People’s Rights Movement, a Cape Town mass movement of social activists, said that ANC members aligned to Seskhona in the Dullah Omar region would meet in Khayelitsha on Sunday to discuss the ANC’s future and the campaign for Phosa to succeed President Jacob Zuma.

He said people such as minister in the presidency Jeff Radebe, former premier of KwaZulu-Natal Senzo Mchunu, chairperson of the national council of provinces Thandi Modise and Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande also had a role to play in shaping the future direction of the ANC, and all those who are part of the current Zuma leadership should stand back.

Lili said Seskhona had “a particular interest when it comes to the leadership of the ANC” because it shared core values with the party. Its objective is to assist the ANC to retain control of Cape Town as well as the Western Cape.

He said that those in the current ANC leadership were arrogant and unlikely to inspire the party to win back the city and the province.

“We need radical leadership that will fight meaningfully to change the lives of our poor people.”

Take us forward

He said Zuma could not take the blame alone for the state of the ANC. “Where is the collective that claimed responsibility for the electoral loss?” he asked, referring to the ANC’s electoral decline during the municipal elections last year, which included the loss of three key metros to the opposition.

“We need a leader that will speak the language of us, the poor, the middle class and majority of South Africans,” he said. “There are still leaders like Mathews Phosa who have a credible leadership track record. We believe that Phosa can take us forward.

“We made no mistake to say that Seskhona supports the ANC, but we were disappointed in the 2016 elections. We met with the leadership of the ANC hoping they would understand, but we realised that we were wasting our time,” said Lili.

Despite his former ally Loyiso Nkohla joining the DA, Lili said the majority of Seskhona’s supporters were still behind the ANC and its support would remain, provided that the issues of jobs “are taken care of”.

On the “poo protests” that gained both him and Nkohla a notorious reputation, Lili said they simply “wanted to expose [the DA] in front of the entire world because it is a cruel and heartless government that gave poor people ‘portaloos’, which is nothing but a modern bucket system”.

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